{"id":176,"date":"2012-04-12T22:00:06","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T22:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karenandjon.co.uk\/blog\/?p=176"},"modified":"2024-09-29T21:02:51","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T20:02:51","slug":"gibraltar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/?p=176","title":{"rendered":"Azura Day 14: Gibraltar"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>4 Minute, 31 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

Thursday 12th April 2012<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Weather:<\/strong> Overcast with sunny intervals \u2026 odd spot of rain!<\/h3>\n
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We awoke just before dawn but could see the lights from the coast of Spain and hopefully Gibraltar.\u00a0 Sun rose just as we were coming into view of the rock and we could see that Ventura was already in port.\u00a0 She had changed her itinerary (days for arriving in Cadiz and Gibraltar were swapped over) so the two sister ships were in port at the same time.<\/p>\n

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We were booked on the Fortress Gibraltar<\/strong>\u00a0tour and needed to be dockside by 9.05am.\u00a0 We\u2019d ordered Coffee and Hot Chocolate for 7-7.30am \u2026 and it turned up just before 7am.\u00a0 We watched our approach into Gibraltar until 8am-ish when we dived upstairs to the buffet for a quick breakfast.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Afterwards, we grabbed our stuff from the cabin and went ashore.\u00a0 We were assigned the \u201cGreen 8\u201d minibus and our driver was a former military man from Scotland (can\u2019t remember his name!).\u00a0 We first went out to Europa Point \u2013 the most southerly location of a Trinity Lighthouse, the made our way to the tunnels via the apes.\u00a0 The apes were really quiet \u2013 we only saw three \u2013 probably a mother and two young apes.<\/p>\n

[easy-image-collage id=2816]<\/p>\n

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Sister ships Azura & Ventura in port<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Barbary Apes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We arrived at the Great War Tunnels and donned hard hats and were introduced to our guide, Smudge, another former army man.\u00a0 He was a Smith but all Smiths in the army are known as Smudge so the name stuck.<\/p>\n

[easy-image-collage id=2817]<\/p>\n

We were taken deeper into the rock and shown where the army etc during WW2 lived and worked and you can\u2019t really imagine what life would have been like for the people stationed there.\u00a0 We were shown some Stalegtites that were 70 years old (a mere \u00bd inch in length) and other formations that were millions of years old.\u00a0 All the tunnels were self supporting (no collapses so far!) as it was limestone rock.<\/p>\n

The best bit of the tour was going out onto Jocks Balcony which overlooked the cemetery and the airport.\u00a0 An EasyJet flight had just landed.<\/p>\n

[easy-image-collage id=2818]<\/p>\n

[easy-image-collage id=2820]<\/p>\n

After the tour, we were dropped back in the centre of Gibraltar and wandered up Main Street until the Governors Residence and came back down the Casement Square.\u00a0 It was fairly slow going as there were so many people in town.\u00a0 6,000 passengers and crew ashore meant Main Street was heaving.<\/p>\n

[easy-image-collage id=2819]<\/p>\n

We wandered back to the port.\u00a0 The port building was full of crew meeting up with friends from the two ships making the most of being in port together and meeting up.\u00a0 We managed to get back onboard with 2 minutes to spare to make lunch in the main dining room!\u00a0 Jon and Callum had the Maryland Chicken Sandwich whilst I opt for the Thai Crab Cake and a Side Salad.<\/p>\n

No sooner than we finished lunch we headed to the Aqua Pool for the Great British Sailaway.\u00a0 Ventura was in port all day, so Neil Oliver (Cruise Director) was determined to put on a good show for them as well as us.\u00a0 The sun was shining and it was a great turnout.\u00a0 All the flags had been distributed but a couple gave Callum a set of theirs.\u00a0 The decks onboard Ventura overlooking our Pool area started to fill up.\u00a0 I think we got the better deal \u2013 sailing away whilst Ventura was in port.\u00a0 The Captain came on the tannoy and announced that we would encounter strong winds and a strong swell as soon as we pushed back.<\/p>\n

[easy-image-collage id=2815]<\/p>\n

After dropping Callum back in Kids Club, we headed up to the Planet Bar and struggled to find seats!\u00a0 People had started to take refuge inside as the wind was really picking up.<\/p>\n

About five minutes after leaving Gibraltar, Jon spotted something in the sea.\u00a0 First assumption was dolphins but on closer examination with the binoculars, it was actually a small pod of Killer Whales.\u00a0 Jon spotted about 4-5.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We took Callum to Kids Tea and a little later on, up to Kids Club for the evening as\u00a0Jon and I were heading up to Sindhu to try out the alternate menu.\u00a0 We were served some Chicken Tikka pieces as a pre-starter and we both opted for Scallops for our starter.\u00a0 Jon couldn\u2019t decide on steak or prawns for his main but our waitress steered him towards the Prawns.\u00a0 The description of \u201cGriddled Prawns with Onions and Peppers\u201d did not do the dish justice at all.\u00a0 The prawns were huge and the sauce was extremely yummy.\u00a0 I opted for the Tandoori Monkfish.\u00a0 Our pre-dessert was a Pink Grapefruit sorbet (very refreshing) and for pud, Jon chose the Kulfi (Indian Ice-Cream) and the waitress steered me in the direction of the Pancake Gateau with Cinammon Ice-Cream.\u00a0 It was really light and very delicious.<\/p>\n

[easy-image-collage id=2813]<\/p>\n

[easy-image-collage id=2814]<\/p>\n

We got back to the cabin and tonight Joftan had made a swan out of a towel.\u00a0 Chocolates were stored away in the drawer and we settled down for the evening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Thursday 12th April 2012 Weather: Overcast with sunny intervals \u2026 odd spot of rain! We awoke just before dawn but could see the lights from the coast of Spain and hopefully Gibraltar.\u00a0 Sun rose just as we were coming into view of the rock and we could see that Ventura was already in port.\u00a0 She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[91,46,94,95,96,93,52],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cruise","tag-a207","tag-azura","tag-fortress-gibraltar-tour","tag-gibraltar","tag-great-war-tunnels","tag-po","tag-sindhu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11891,"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/11891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hweb.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}